


Just Buddies

by justhockey



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Feelings are hard okay, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, kind of, or getting back together, they love each other a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 23:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18353558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justhockey/pseuds/justhockey
Summary: Here’s the thing, it was never even really a break up. To actually break up there has to be a relationship to start with, and that was never the case with Tyler and Jamie. It wasn’t A Thing. It was just, you know, a thing. Lowercase.





	Just Buddies

They’ve done it. Like. They’ve actually, really done it. They beat the Flyers on home ice and they’re going to the playoffs again. 

Tyler can’t quite believe it, really. Or. He can, because he knows their team is amazingly talented and they put their everything into every single game. But still. They were struggling for a while, so. He’s excited, is what he’s trying to say. Except excited doesn’t even begin to explain the feeling in his chest as the clock winds down and the buzzer sounds and they’re _in the fucking playoffs_. 

They all jump onto the ice, yelling and cheering as they charge towards Dobby and form a line to thank him. Because holy _fuck_ did he have a good game. And it’s all amazing and exhilarating, until Tyler sees Jamie’s face.

Then every good thing he’s feeling slips away and he just, well, _aches_. Because that smile on Jamie’s face as he presses his head against Dobby’s, the laughter spilling from his chest as the team hug and congratulate each other, that’s just too much for Tyler. It fucking _hurts_ , and Tyler, he’s in touch with his emotions, okay, so it takes him a second to school his expression and join back in with the celebrations. 

He manages it, obviously, because he’s a professional (and fuck anyone who ever doubted that). So he congratulates each member of their team, even Jamie, though he can’t bring himself to make eye contact with him. Then he makes it through a post game interview where he has to be upbeat and excited and _Tyler_. And okay. He _is_ excited, he really fucking is, because making the playoffs is fucking huge, and there’s no one he would rather do it with than a team of his best friends. But still. There’s that dull ache in his chest every time he glances over to Jamie’s locker and sees him grinning and laughing in a way that used to be reserved exclusively for Tyler, but now seems to be for everyone other than him. 

Hintz and Miro are looking at Jamie with an awe-filled expression and a dazed smile curling at the corners of their mouths, Rads is yelling in Russian, grabbing everyone by the shoulders and planting kisses on all of their cheeks, and Dobby is sitting with his pads still on, grinning at no one in particular. The locker room is loud and excited and normally Tyler thrives in this environment, but now he just wants to escape. So he makes up some excuse about how Gerry is under the weather and he doesn’t want to leave him alone for too long, and begs out early. 

He absolutely does _not_ glance to check Jamie’s reaction. He _doesn’t_.

*

Here’s the thing, it was never even really a break up. To actually break up there has to be a relationship to start with, and that was never the case with Tyler and Jamie. It wasn’t A Thing. It was just, you know, a thing. Lowercase. 

It had started out of frustration, when the team wasn’t producing and everyone was just pretty fucking miserable. The thought of going out and finding someone to hook up with was just _tiring_ , so they’d declined the invitation to go and get absolutely blind drunk. And okay, Jamie and Tyler have been best friends basically since day one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get at each other’s throats sometimes. So they were in another bland hotel room in a city that Tyler can’t even remember when he looks back on it. But the point is, they were yelling. A lot. And then they just. Weren’t. They were kissing instead, and Jamie was pressing Tyler into the mattress, and it was just _so good_ that Tyler couldn’t make his mouth say no. 

Listen, he’s not a _complete_ idiot, contrary to popular belief. Tyler absolutely knows that hooking up with your best friend-slash-captain is definitively _not_ a good idea, especially when you may or may not be in love with aforementioned best friend-slash-captain. But he never claimed to make smart decisions. So when Jamie suggested that they could hook up again sometime, like, as buddies, or whatever, just to take the edge off, Tyler agreed. And it was honestly not his fault, okay, because Jamie was smiling at him all softly with his big cow eyes and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and Tyler is only human. He didn’t stand a chance against that. 

Whatever. 

It was good. Like, really, mind blowingly good. Nothing changed between them, they were still amazing lineys and best friends, they acted the same around each other, nothing was noticeable in the locker room. They just. Banged, sometimes. Occasionally. Like, a few times a week. And it went on for a few months without incident. 

But then they were out one night after breaking their losing streak, the whole team on a high, and Tyler was very much looking forward to dragging Jamie home and letting him have his way with Tyler. Like. As buddies. But then he caught sight of Jamie at the bar, a tiny redhead pressed close against his side and he leaned in to talk to her. And ouch. It hurt, like, worse than his shoulder injury a few seasons back. 

Like, it wasn’t news to Tyler that he was in love with Jamie. He’d probably been in love with him since the start, though it had taken him a while to figure it out (and lots of interventions from Brownie). But, like, it was kind of a punch in the gut to realise just _how_ in love with him he was. And Tyler does have some self preservation skills, thank you very much, so the only option was to end it. Or, not end it, because it wasn’t A Thing. But to stop hooking up with Jamie. Because every time Jamie kissed his neck or ran his hands over Tyler’s thighs, Tyler fell a bit harder, and Jamie just thought it was, like, bros. So Tyler needed to stop hooking up with his straight bro if he wanted his heart to survive. 

*

Tyler knows it shouldn’t hurt this much, he thinks as he sits on his couch with Gerry - who is definitely _not_ a lap dog - sprawled over him. He ended it with Jamie, he made the choice to stop, and it’s been almost a month since they last hooked up. But that means it’s been almost a month since they hung out together properly too, almost a month since Tyler could make eye contact with Jamie. And like, he knows that the locker room can tell something isn’t right between them, because yeah, alright, they are - _were_ \- codependent, and now they only spend time together at team things. He also knows that it’s only awkward because of him - Jamie had tried to act like normal around Tyler after they’d put a stop to the hooking up, but after having a piece of Jamie, it’s become even harder for Tyler to pretend he’s not in love with him. 

Like, he can’t control his heart, okay, _sue him_. 

He can’t help but begin to regret ever allowing things to happen between him and Jamie. They just made it to the fucking playoffs, he should be out celebrating with his team, with _Jamie_ , but he just. Can’t. He knows it’s pathetic, to be moping around when he should be living it up, but he doesn’t know how to be around Jamie when he’s all, like, _glowing_ , and not kiss him. 

Happy Jamie is his favourite Jamie, closely followed by angry captain Jaime, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Jamie’s smile is probably his favourite thing in the world. He’s spent years making stupid jokes and embarrassing himself just to see that smile light up Jamie’s face. He loves his smile, loves his laugh, loves _him_. But now that smile just makes his chest feel hollow, because as much as he still wants Jamie to be happy - he’ll always want Jamie to be happy - it just reminds him of all the things he’s never gonna get to have. 

Like, he knew getting into it that it was just hooking up to Jamie, but he’d slowly let a little spark of hope start to burn inside him. Every time Jamie just stayed the night instead of going home, or when he’d press his lips to Tyler’s shoulder the morning after, it felt like _maybe_. And it was his own fault for daring to hope. He shouldn’t have been surprised when he saw Jamie with that girl, they were as far from exclusive as you could get, but it still hurt, because he knew that one day he was gonna find some pretty but dull girl to settle down with. And Tyler knew that when the time came for that, it was gonna kill him. 

*

When Tyler’s doorbell rings the next morning, he’s not sure who he’s expecting to see, but it’s definitely not Spezza carrying a bag full of snacks that are definitely _not_ on their diet plan. 

Tyler raises his eyebrows, “Hi?”

“Hey bud,” Spez says, muscling his way past Tyler and into the house. 

He barely makes it to the kitchen before he gets accosted by Cash and Gerry, with Marshall slowly plodding along behind them. He takes the time to give them all the head pats and belly rubs they had been searching for while Tyler just watches on, leaning against the doorframe while he tries to figure out what Jason is doing in his house at 10am. 

“Spez, what are you doing here?” Tyler finally asks. 

“I brought food,” he replies, looking up at Tyler from where he’s crouched on the floor to pet the dogs. 

“I’d hardly call it food, but sure,” Tyler says as he looks through the back of chocolate, chips, and gatorade bottles, “Why, though?”

Jason stands up at that, and leans on the kitchen counter to look Tyler in the eye. It makes him kind of uncomfortable but he doesn’t look away. 

“Thought you might need someone to talk to,” he answers. 

And yeah, they might chirp each other to hell and back, but at the end of the day the entire team has got each other’s backs, so Tyler shouldn’t be surprised really. He’s touched, if he’s honest, that Jason would bother to come and check up on him. Doesn’t mean he’s willing to talk about things, though. 

“Why?” Tyler chuckles, trying to play it cool, “We’re in the playoffs bro, what could possibly be wrong?”

Spezza raises an eyebrow, “Or we can just play video games and eat?”

Talking about feelings? No. But beating his teammate at video games? That’s something Tyler can handle. 

* 

Of course, he should have known that he wasn’t going to get away with it that easily. 

They’d been playing for over an hour, snacking on crap that they were definitely going to have work off later, when Spez paused the game and shifted so he was facing Tyler. 

“Can I help?” Tyler laughed, even though his heart was kind of clenching in his chest. 

“What’s going on Segs?”

Tyler chuckles again, but it sounds strained, “What are you talking about?”

Jason just rolls his eyes, “You and Chubbs have barely spoken in a month. You hardly even acknowledged each other last night, and we earned a fucking spot in the _playoffs_ ,” Tyler looks down at the controller in his hands, “So I’ll ask again: what’s going on, Segs?”

Tyler’s breathing hitches. He has no idea how to answer. Of course, _of course_ he wants to talk to someone about all of this. He’d kept it from everyone, even his sisters, though he was sure they at least knew how he felt about Jamie. It was hard, going through it all without being able to talk about it to anyone, but he had to be careful. He couldn’t just tell Spezza, ‘cos then he’d be outing Jamie, and that just wasn’t something he was gonna do. 

“Did you have a fight?” Spez prompts, and Tyler immediately shakes his head. 

“No, we didn’t fight, really,” because it was true, there had been no raised voices or harsh words. Jamie had just smiled and said ‘okay’, and Tyler had kind of wished there _had_ been a fight, because that easy acceptance hurt like hell. 

“Okay, so what?”

“I’m bi,” Tyler says. 

Which. That wasn’t what he was planning on saying. But sure. 

He turns his head to look at Spezza, simultaneously eager and terrified to see how he was going to react. He wasn’t actually out to that many people. He was more open about it before he was drafted, but when he had mentioned it casually to a teammate in Boston it hadn’t gone down too well, so now he tends to just. Not say anything. 

“Okay,” Jason says, nodding his head, “So, what? Jamie has a problem with it?” He asks, frowning and sounding more than a little confused. 

Tyler lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. The easy acceptance was beyond a relief. 

“No, I mean that’s not why me and Chubbs aren’t, you know,” he says, not really sure how to finish the sentence. 

He knows he’s not making much sense, and he appreciates Jason’s patience. He’s trying so hard to say what he needs to say, to talk about his feelings, just without implicating Jamie in any of it. 

“I have, like, feelings. Or whatever,” is what Tyler chooses to go with, apparently. 

Spezza laughs a little at that, resting a hand on Tyler’s shoulder and squeezing it a little. It’s a nice gesture, makes it a little easier for Tyler to breathe. 

“Yeah bud, people have been known to have them occasionally,” Spez laughs, not really picking up what Tyler was putting out there. 

Tyler groans, running a hand through his unbrushed hair and then rubbing his eyes so hard he starts to see kaleidoscopes. 

“I mean, like, _feelings_ feelings. For Jamie,” Tyler admits, refusing to even look in Jason’s direction, instead focusing on the leg of the coffee table that Gerry had used as a teething toy when he was a puppy. 

Jason is silent for a few seconds. Or hours. Tyler isn’t really sure. He also can’t tell if his heart is beating so fast that he can’t feel it, or if it’s just stopped all together. 

“You like Jamie?” He asks, finally. 

“Yep,” Tyler confirms, “or like, love, or something.”

“You _love_ Jamie?”

“Yeah that’s the one,” Tyler admits, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth and chewing it on. 

Jason laughs. Like. A full on belly laugh. Tyler doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed or hurt. He isn’t entirely sure what Jason is thinking, so he doesn’t know what the correct emotional response is. He coughs a little, trying to remind Spez that Tyler is in fact right there, and like, having a crisis. 

“I’m sorry, sorry,” Spez chokes out through his laughter, “I just thought it was something serious.”

Which. Rude. 

“This _is_ serious!” Tyler cries out in indignation. 

“No, yeah of course it is,” Spezza agrees, “but it’s not exactly news, is it?”

Tyler almost chokes at that. If he’d been drinking he definitely would have spit it out. 

“ _You knew?_ ” 

“I mean, you two aren’t exactly subtle,” Jason laughs. 

And that’s. What? What is he talking about, _they’re not subtle?_

“Jason, what the fuck are you talking about?” Tyler asks, because, like, what the fuck?

“Like, we obviously weren’t gonna say anything until you were both ready to tell us, but we all know you’re together.”

Tyler’s brain short circuits then. Because, together? Him and Jamie? They couldn’t have possibly have thought they were together, because they weren’t, they never had been. And Tyler very purposefully ignores the little voice in his head saying they must have looked like a couple. Because, seriously. Not helpful. 

“Jason, we’re not together,” Tyler explains. 

Jason’s face does something kind of weird then, half confused, half sad, maybe. 

“You broke up? Is that why you’ve been avoiding each other?”

“No,” Tyler groans, “we were never together?”

“Sorry, what?” And Spez almost sounds like he’s accusing Tyler of something. 

“Me and Jamie, we’ve never, we’re not,” Tyler stutters, “wait, why would he have a problem with me being bi if we were together?” He asks, because his brain is having trouble focusing on anything right now. 

“I don’t know, that’s why I was confused!” Jason exclaims, “So you’re really not a thing?”

“ _No_ ,” Tyler whines. 

“Shit, we all thought that you, well, wait,” he pauses, “so why aren’t you talking?”

And they’d come full circle. But just because they had all thought Jamie was, well, not straight, it doesn’t mean it’s Tyler’s place to confirm or deny. He still can’t tell Spezza that he and Jamie had a thing (lowercase, not A Thing) because that’s like, really not cool. He would know. 

“Because I love him, and like, he’s straight and obviously not in love with me, and like, it just hurts, okay? I know it’s dumb, it’s just, it’s hard to be around him sometimes,” Tyler confesses. 

And yeah. That’s the truth. It’s not the whole story, but it’s definitely all true, so at least he doesn’t feel like he’s lying to Jason. 

He’s waiting for him to reply when he just stands up and starts putting his shoes back on. Tyler frowns and stands up, following him over to the door where he puts his jacket on and pauses, looking directly at Tyler. 

“Spez? You can’t make me tell you about my problems and then just leave!” Tyler whines, and Jason just laughs. 

Jason reaches a hand out and rests it on Tyler’s shoulder, squeezing it again like earlier, “Talk to him, Ty,” he says. 

Tyler doesn’t even get a chance to reply because Jason is out the door before he even opens his mouth. Like, what the fuck? His best friends suck. 

But also give kind of good advice. Occasionally. 

* 

Tyler is parked outside of Jamie’s house, his thumbs drumming against the steering wheel as he tries to work up the courage to get out of the car and knock on the door. He’s been parked there for almost fifteen minutes now, and he knows it’s ridiculous, okay, but he’s nervous. Because he knows he needs to talk to Jamie, like obviously. For one, the entire team can tell something’s off between them. Also, the entire team thought they were _dating_ , which, that’s like definitely something they should discuss. 

But also. They haven’t talked about anything other than hockey in a month, and Tyler is in love with him, and life is just hard. But he’s tired of missing Jamie, too. He supposes it comes down to whether or not he wants to have Jamie in his life as his friend, or lose him completely. And really, he should have thought about it like that a lot sooner, because the answer is painfully obvious. 

He gets out of the car and walks up the pathway to Jamie’s door. He’s definitely home, because his huge-ass truck is parked in the driveway. Tyler is quite proud of himself when it only takes him another five minutes to actually knock on the door. 

It takes less than a minute for it to swing open, and Tyler’s breath catches in his throat when he sees Jamie. He looks _so fucking good_ , all happy and smiley, still high off the excitement of clinching a playoff spot. His eyebrows furrow and his smile falters when he sees that it’s Tyler at the door though, and Tyler tries to act like it doesn’t feel like a knife through his chest. 

“Hey,” he says, smiling slightly. 

“Hi Seggy,” Jamie replies, and he sounds kind of breathless but that’s probably just Tyler’s imagination. 

“Can we talk?” Tyler asks. 

Jamie doesn’t reply, just steps back and holds the door open so Tyler can step inside. He hasn’t been to Jamie’s since he ended their thing, and it’s kind of jarring how everything it’s exactly the same, even though there’s no reason why it would have changed. He tries not to think about how many girls Jamie has brought here since they stopped as he makes his way into the living room. He throws himself down on the couch at an attempt at normalcy, though it kind of fails because things haven’t been normal between him and Jamie for a long time. 

Jamie follows, and he doesn’t look too reluctant, which Tyler is taking as a win. He sits down too, but on the arm chair instead of beside Tyler on the couch. He’s looking at Tyler with his big cow eyes and Tyler kind of melts. 

“So Spezza came to see me,” Tyler starts, and ignores the way Jamie looks kind of worried for a second. “The team know something’s off between us.”

Jamie averts his eyes a little, as if he’s realising that they’re finally gonna have to talk about what happened between them. And like, Tyler gets that it probably won’t be fun for a straight guy to discuss all the gay sex he had with his buddy, but. That’s the price you pay for having gay sex with your buddy, really. 

“Also, they thought we were dating.”

Tyler has no clue why he just said that. Like, at all. Because he certainly didn’t plan on saying that, or at least, he wanted to approach it more tactically. But it’s out there now. So. 

“What?” Jamie says, sounding kind of like he’s choking. 

“Yeah. But that’s not really what we should talk about. We can’t like, let this affect the team. Not now we’ve got the playoffs to think about,” Tyler says, and he’s proud of himself for being so mature. 

“I mean, yeah, you’re right,” Jamie agrees, which is honestly kind of a shock to Tyler, because he’s used to having to convince people he’s right. 

“Like we fucked, and stuff. It’s done now. Whatever. We should go back to being friends,” Tyler says. 

He knows how hard it’s going to be for him, to be just friends with Jamie when he knows what sounds he makes in bed and what he looks like first thing in the morning, but he also knows that they can’t just leave things the way they are. The team, their friendship, it’s too important for Tyler to let go. So he needs to grow up and pull his shit together. 

“Well yeah, but Segs, I tried, you were the one who was weird about it?” Jamie says.

That’s true, of course. Jamie had handled the whole ‘gay sex with a buddy’ thing just fine, and like, he was obviously fine when it ended too. It was all on Tyler and he knows that, which is why he’s the one making the first move here. 

“Yeah yeah, I know, which is why I’m here now. To say it’s not weird. We should go back to normal.”

Tyler isn’t expecting Jamie to get mad, like, at all, because he’s trying to be mature here. He’s trying to do the adult thing and confront his problems instead of avoiding them. Tyler also figured that Jamie had at least missed Tyler as a friend. So he’s not sure why Jamie starts yelling at him. 

“What the fuck Tyler? You ignore me for a month then just show up and act like it never happened?”

“I’m not _acting like it never happened_ ,” Tyler argues back, “I’m trying to fix it.”

Jamie laughs sardonically, “Right, so you ignore me for a month and then get to decide when we’re gonna start speaking again?”

Tyler huffs in frustration, “I’m trying here, Jamie.”

“You could have tried a month ago, instead of fucking me off completely. You don’t get to make my decisions for me,” Jamie yells. 

Tyler would never try and do that, though. He just wants to fix things between them, for themselves and for the team, and he’s not sure why Jamie is resisting it so aggressively. Unless, of course, Jamie just doesn’t want to be friends with Tyler anymore. Which, Tyler had never even considered that possibility, actually, and now he feels kind of sick. 

“I don’t get why you’re so mad!” Tyler yells back, because he isn’t just gonna let Jamie shout at him like that. 

“You fucking ditched me!”

“Well you broke my heart!”

Shit. 

Shit shit shit. 

Tyler was absolutely _not_ supposed to say that. Because he wasn’t sure of much, but he was completely certain that he was _never_ going to tell Jamie how he felt about him. That was just gonna complicate things even more. Except, Tyler has no filter apparently, especially when Jamie is involved - specifically if Jamie is mad at him. 

“What?” Jamie asks, all the fight suddenly drained out of him, “You’re the one who ended it, how did _I_ break _your_ heart?”

Keeping secrets was kind of what started all of these problems in the first place. If Tyler had just said _no, Jamie, we can’t hook up again_ in the first place, if he’d told him that he wasn’t okay with being friends with benefits, or whatever the fuck they were, then they wouldn’t be in this situation at all. So keeping secrets is bad, is what he’s trying to say. 

“It wasn’t just sex to me, alright?” Tyler confesses, his voice no louder than a whisper, “Like I know it was just buddies to you, but it wasn’t to me, okay? I’ve like, been in love with you for a long time, and I thought I could handle us just fooling around, but I couldn’t.”

Holy shit. Tyler’s surprised at how much lighter he feels after saying that, out loud, to Jamie. He doesn’t know how he’s gonna respond, doesn’t know if he’s just ruined their friendship completely or not, but it feels like the weight on his back just got a little lighter. He looks up from the floor to get a read on how Jamie is feeling, if he’s pissed or not, but mostly he just looks confused. 

“Jamie?”

“I don’t - I - why would you end it if you’re, you know, in love with me?” Jamie asks, as if Tyler hadn’t _just_ explained this. 

“Because it wasn’t real for you. Because I knew that one day you were gonna settle down with some girl and never think twice about what we’d done, and like, it fucking _hurt_ Jamie. And that’s not your fault, but I just couldn’t do it anymore,” Tyler explains again, ending it with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“I don’t, what? What are you talking about, _settle down with some girl_?” Jamie says. 

“Like, I don’t know, it was right after we’d broke our losing streak and you were with this girl at the bar and you were so close and it just hit me that one day you were gonna find someone, because it was just a bit of fun for you, but it was so much for me,” Tyler elaborates. 

He’s getting kind of frustrated that he has to keep airing out all these painful feelings. He really just wanted to show up, agree to be friends again, then like, play video games or whatever. He wasn’t supposed to tell Jamie he’s in love with him, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to show Jamie just how pathetic he is. 

“What girl?” Jamie asks, because _of course_ that’s what he focuses on.

“I don’t know Chubbs, she was short, red hair? Does it matter?” Tyler sighs in exasperation. 

“I just, I don’t know why you’d have thought I was gonna hook up with her? I haven’t hooked up with anyone but you since that first time,” Jamie says. 

Which. Wow. Okay. That’s, that _something_ for sure. 

Tyler tries to hide the gasp that escapes his lips but the way Jamie looks at him tells him he probably failed. But honestly he can’t be expected to act normally when Jamie just says something like that so casually. And like, realistically Tyler knows it doesn’t mean anything, probably just that he was convenient for Jamie or something, but still. It’s hard to act chill when the potential love of your life says something like that. 

“Why?” Tyler manages to ask, somehow. 

Jamie laughs at that, but Tyler really isn’t sure what’s funny about it. 

“Why do you think, Tyler?” 

Jamie stands up, starts pacing around the living room, and Tyler doesn’t know what to do with himself, doesn’t know how to respond. He’s kind of overwhelmed, if he’s telling the truth. This is just, like, a lot. 

“I really don’t have a clue,” Tyler answers honestly. 

“Fuck, Tyler,” Jamie groans, stopping directly in front of where Tyler is sat, “it was never _just buddies_ for me.”

Tyler thinks he stops breathing at that, or maybe he just dies on the spot. Because seriously, what the fuck?

“Sorry, can you repeat that?” Tyler whispers, standing up to look Jamie in the eye. 

Jamie shakes his head a little and laughs, reaching out to hold the top of Tyler’s arms. 

“Fuck Ty, it was never just hooking up for me, okay? I just, I wasn’t sure if you wanted more or not. But I’ve been in love with you since you moved here.”

Yeah, Tyler is definitely dead and in heaven, because there’s absolutely no way those words are coming out of Jamie Benn’s mouth. Except they are. And Jamie is smiling at him so softly, with tears glistening in his eyes as he moves his hands up over Tyler’s shoulders until they’re cupping his face so gently Tyler wants to cry. 

“But you, you just let me end it?” Tyler murmurs, because he’s still too scared to believe Jamie really means what he’s saying. 

Jamie just smiles, as patient as he always is with Tyler, and just says, “I thought it didn’t mean anything to _you_ , and I didn’t wanna make things weird, so I just let you go. It fucking killed me seeing you every day, not being able to kiss you. And then I thought you were mad at me. I just didn’t wanna force you into anything.”

Tyler doesn’t really know what to say to that. Jamie is telling him exactly what he had always wanted to hear, and Tyler knows, can see it in the way that Jamie is looking at him, that he means it. Jamie _loves_ him. There’s not much else Tyler can really do, except kiss him. 

So he does. He reaches his hand up to Jamie’s neck and pulls him down so he can kiss him. It’s soft, and sweet, and everything Tyler has ever wanted it. It’s so good he wants to cry, actually feels the tears welling in his eyes as Jamie wraps an arm around his waist and pulls Tyler flush against his chest. Tyler knew he’d missed Jamie, but he actually fucking whines when Jamie pulls back. 

They’re both breathless and smiling. Neither of them want to move away from each other, Tyler just presses his face into the crook of Jamie’s neck and breathes in, trying to compose himself a little as Jamie kisses his hair over and over again. He’s trying to catch his breath but his heart won’t stop racing. He can’t believe Jamie wants him like this, in the same way that Tyler wants Jamie. It’s almost too good to be true, and Tyler squeezes Jamie tightly at the thought of this being ripped away from him. 

“Hey,” Jamie murmurs, waiting until Tyler pulls back to look at him, “I love you, okay, I’m not going anywhere again.”

The tears that had been threatening to spill over finally do. Tyler would be embarrassed, except Jamie brushes them away so gently, then kisses Tyler again as he runs his hands through Tyler’s hair. He takes a deep breath, trying to pull himself together. 

“I love you,” Jamie repeats as he presses a kiss to Tyler’s forehead. 

“I love you too,” Tyler finally replies, whispering so his voice doesn’t crack. 

“You’re it for me, okay, I’m not going anywhere. And when things get hard we’re gonna talk about it, okay?”

Tyler nods, but can’t manage to reply. For a guy who normally can’t shut the fuck up, he’s finding it a little difficult to form sentences right now. But like, you can’t really blame him, here. The love of his life loves him back. There aren’t really words for that. Words seem kind of superfluous at this point. Nothing could even begin to describe how he’s feeling, anyway. 

*

When they arrive at practice the next day, it’s immediately obvious that there’s been some kind of shift in the atmosphere in the locker room. The guys obviously know something is going on between them, and they’d discussed briefly what they were gonna do about telling the team, but like, not properly because they had better things to do last night, okay?

So Tyler really, _really_ isn’t expecting it when Jamie leans down and kisses him on the cheek as Tyler is lacing up his skates. 

“See you on the ice, baby,” Jamie says, before leaving the locker room. 

Tyler can feel his cheeks burning as he looks up to survey the room. Everyone is very obviously avoiding looking at him, but he notices the small smiles on all of his teammates faces. He looks over to Spezza’s locker to see that he’s already watching Tyler. When they make eye contact Jason just winks at him then continues getting dressed. 

Tyler’s cheeks are still warm, but he’s grinning as he heads out to meet his boyfriend on the ice.

**Author's Note:**

> The Stars are in the playoffs and, in case you can’t tell, I am extremely happy about this.


End file.
